She thought of her breakfast the previous weekend. The typical Russian fare that was more about show than tradition: caviar, borscht, the champagne which had gone straight to her head, giving her the sort of frontal lobe headache she hadn’t experienced since Callum was a baby and she found herself temporarily struck by migraines, which the doctors dismissed as the result of dehydration (‘Very common in breastfeeding mothers’ – as if that fact alone should soothe the blinding pain).

Tom was working hard to keep everything as normal as possible as they pulled on their shoes and headed out for the family stroll across the Heath, which he’d suggested as he tidied away the plates after breakfast, indicating for her to stay seated as he did so.

That day, she was precious cargo, long-awaited and newly received from faraway lands; exotic and highly breakable.

There was a hint of summer in the air as they made their way towards the entrance by the tennis courts. It was a clear day and sprigs of colour lined the verge as the path led up and away from the tribes of dog-walkers and hungover parents wrestling with screaming toddlers gathered around the café, guiding them towards Kenwood.

‘Why don’t you run ahead and climb on the trees over there?’ she said to Callum, pointing towards the fallen trunks he had shuffled along as a toddler, bundled in a padded bodysuit, a look of terrified confusion gripping his features.

Callum tugged on her arm, gripping her hand more tightly with his own and shaking his head.

He did this when he was hurt or felt abandoned. She had forgotten it about him, the same behaviour he had displayed when she went away on shorter work trips when he was younger. His way of showing her he hadn’t forgiven her for leaving him was to hold on as tightly as he could.

Would Tom have received the same reaction had it been him who had gone away? Would friends and strangers have recoiled to hear that he was leaving his child for months on end, she wondered, if the tables were turned? It was a pointless question, of course: Tom was not going anywhere.

‘That’s OK, you don’t have to go, I just thought you might want to,’ she said to Callum, lightly squeezing his hand. ‘Once we get to Kenwood, we can have a hot chocolate.’ It was all she had in this moment. Simple offerings: food, drinks, nothing too cerebral.

And so it continued for the following week. Her adjusting back into family life, Tom accepting her self-imposed distance in a way that made her want to shake him.

And then finally, the following Saturday night, as they settled down with a bottle of wine on opposite sides of the sofa, he snapped.

‘Is this how it is now?’

She looked up, surprised by the timing of his offensive but also relieved.

‘I’m sorry?’